Week Eight, 21st - 25th Oct 2013

This week I went back to Worcester Sixth Form College to do a presentation on ‘being an archaeologist’ for the archaeology students there. Many are about to embark on (or about to decide on) various degrees in archaeology and related subjects and so much of this presentation was directed towards what they can expect over the next few years. I also reflected on my time in the commercial sector of archaeology prior to this placement and other career opportunities.

At the end of the presentation I told them about the workshop I was planning with HSFC and offered them a similar opportunity. They all seemed very eager to get out of the classroom and handle some archaeology. But since time was short before the upcoming half term we decided on doing it in February next year.

It would seem as if the Alcester site is gaining a lot of local support and despite the sad situation of its incomplete state I am grateful that it is affording a wide breath of opportunities for students and communities to become active in preserving such important site. Moreover, it is proving to be invaluable in teaching people new skills to take away with them for the future as well as an understanding of just how fragile our archaeological past can be if we don’t do things properly.

I am now hoping that if we can all process this site together successfully then there may be some revenue to get a preliminary report done on the site. After all, the earliest military occupation of Alcester must rate high on any Romanist's agenda. 

Week Seven, 14th - 18th Oct 2013

This week I supervised a work experience student called Danniel who came to us from St. Mary’s R.C. High School in Hereford. She has a passion for archaeology and wanted to learn more before deciding what to do in her higher education.

On Monday Danielle did some wet sieving with Annie Partridge who is now one of the supervisors at Headland after completing her CBA placement earlier in the year. We then all did some finds and environmental processing together throughout the afternoon.

Tuesday and Wednesday saw Danielle and I processed one of the Roman cremations from the Alcester site. This was a thoroughly enjoyable exercise for both of us and was a rare opportunity for Danielle to do something special with her work experience. It is amazing just how much you can learn about an individual from even the tiniest fragments of bone. Jason Murphy is a site supervisor and osteologist with headland and he showed us both how compressions on a vertebra visible even after cremation suggested an adult that had lived a hard life of manual labor. Could this be one of the soldiers from the fort? We will never know for sure but it was certainly an intriguing possibility, and one I think Danielle really enjoyed thinking about. Moreover, the discovery of a fingerprint on the cremation vessel, probably from the last person to hold it before it was fired, was an exciting personal touch bringing us tantalizingly close to this Roman individual.

The above photographs are taken at different stages of the excavation of the Roman cremation. Note how the larger fragments of bone are at the bottom of the vessel which makes the last stages much more tricky.

 Danielle excavating the Roman cremation

Danielle and I washing and sorting the bone from the other content of the vessel.

 After wet sieving the contents of the vessel we had to carefully and painstakingly separate the tiniest fragments of bone from the retent.

Some useful links regarding the treatment of human remains:

http://www.bajr.org/Documents/HumanRemainsGuide.pdf

http://www.babao.org.uk/HumanremainsFINAL.pdf

Also look for MOLAS guidelines.

On Thursday I took Danielle with me to Alcester Heritage Centre in the morning where I had arranged to meet Laurence Thatcher who has been instrumental in building local volunteer support to work on the Alcester site. He and some 60 volunteers had been washing and marking the finds over the past few months and I wanted to meet him to find out a bit more about the Heritage Centre, the volunteers and the community that is so active in preserving their town’s heritage. Since Danielle had been working on the cremation and environmental samples this week I thought it was a good opportunity for them all to meet, and for her to get an impression of the kinds of work involved in community archaeology.

The Heritage Centre at Alcester is a fantastic facility and we had a good talk about its past work and future direction. Laurence was keen to talk to Danielle about her interest in archaeology since the centre was hoping to develop its teenage demographic. We passed some ideas between us to this end and hopefully something may come out of it in the near future.

For information on the Alcester Heritage Centre go to http://www.alcester.co.uk/page.aspx?id=188

Week Six, 7th - 11th Oct 2013

I returned to HSFC on Friday to do a presentation to the archaeology students on the proposed work experience. It was a good practice in doing public speaking with PowerPoint presentations and I enjoyed the experience greatly. It was nice to see a group of budding archaeologists willing to volunteer their time and so I tried to make the experience as interesting as possible since they were giving up their lunch break to listen to me. I took along a selection of samian pottery and some of the small finds from the Alcester site to spur their interest and I think they enjoyed being able to handle some real archaeology, even for a brief moment. 

Pictures of some of the environmental processing so far.

There was encouraging support from the students for the project so Jason Williams (head of archaeology) and I decided it may be beneficial to have some sort of introductory workshop during half term for the students that expressed interest. This would be a good opportunity to meet them more personally and give them a better idea of the work we intend to undertake over the coming months. But with twenty or so enthusiastic volunteers this will take some organizing. This will be the first volunteer activity I will have organised and run so far on this placement so I am excited to get started.

Images of some of the small finds from Alcester Bleachfield St.

Week Five, 30th Sept - 4th Oct 2013

On Thursday this week I visited the Hereford Sixth Form College to meet with the head of their Archaeology Dept Jason Williams. The HSFC students had done some work experience with headland in the past and the plan was to discuss whether the students could work on an old site archive that is being stored at our office on behalf of the Warwickshire Museum Services.

The commercial excavation of a supposed Roman auxiliary fort and settlement at Bleachfield Street in Alcester some years ago has still not been fully completed. The unfortunate situation of this partially processed site is that the developer who commissioned the excavation failed to deliver the post-excavation phase of the project. Over the years there have been a number of attempts by both Headland and the fantastic volunteers at Alcester Heritage Centre to process of much as possible. However, there has been no real consolidated and completed effort due to lack of funds.

With the support of both the Warwickshire Museum Services and The Alcester Heritage Centre I intend to have the students process the site so that it can be archived and saved. This will take the form of weekly afternoon sessions where the students will be trained in finds and environmental processing with the aim of completing the work in time for the Alcester Roman Festival next summer.

I have spent a lot of time this week going over the archive, sorting the processed and completed parts from the unprocessed and partially processed parts, not to mention trying to get my head around all the associated paperwork. We seem to have our work cut out but it will be worth the effort to save what is an important site in regards to the early military occupation of Alcester, not to mention a fantastic opportunity for the archaeology students to contribute to archaeological research in their area and to develop their practical archaeological skills.

I am to go back to HSFC next week with a plan of action.

Picture of the finds store which has been home to the Alcester site for a number of years. The plastic bags on the floor and shelves contain the unprocessed and partially processed finds.